60,000 Thessaloniki Residents to Evacuate so WWII bomb to force major evacuation

THESSALONIKI

Authorities in Greece’s second-largest city are planning to evacuate up to 70,000 residents from their homes so experts can safely defuse a 250kg of an unexploded World War II bomb.

The evacuation in Thessaloniki is set for Sunday, and people living 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) around the bomb site will be kept away from the area for up to five hours, officials say.

The bomb was found 5 meters (over 16 feet) deep near the central railway station in western Thessaloniki during work to expand a gas station’s underground tanks. The existing tanks have been emptied, but previous attempts to remove the bomb were unsuccessful.

Deputy regional governor Voula Patoulidou told the Associated Press on Monday that military and police authorities will try to defuse the bomb on the spot.

The device, dropped during an air raid on the northern city in the 1940s, was unearthed in a densely populated area last week during works to expand fuel storage tanks.

Bomb disposal experts will attempt to tackle the device, found near a petrol station at a depth of 5.5m, on Sunday.

More than 300 disabled people and bed-bound patients were the first to move out on Saturday morning, at the start of what is being described as the biggest peacetime evacuation in Greece’s history.

The departure of all residents within a 1.9km radius of the bomb site, affecting three neighbourhoods in the west of the city centre, is due to be completed before 08:00 GMT on Sunday.

Refugees living in a nearby camp will also have to be evacuated, the migration ministry said, without specifying how many.